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A Roman marble male portrait head image 1
A Roman marble male portrait head image 2
Lot 125*

A Roman marble male portrait head

Antiquities
3 July 2019, 10:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £4,812.50 inc. premium

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A Roman marble male portrait head
Circa 1st Century B.C.-1st Century A.D.
Possibly a priest of Isis, the mature male thick-set with a bald or shaved head, lidded almond-shaped eyes, slightly parted lips and rounded chin, with fleshy neck and sloping shoulders, 37cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
French art market.
Anonymous sale; Bonhams, London, 21 April 2005, lot 217.
Spanish art market.
Anonymous sale; Bonhams London, 15 October 2008, lot 236.
Private collection, UK, acquired at the above sale.
Anonymous sale; Bonhams, London, 24 October 2012, lot 140.
Private collection, UK, acquired at the above sale.

The subject's total absence of hair, including a lack of indication of hair at the sides and back of the head (which would be consistent with natural balding), suggests that he may have served as a priest of Isis, despite lacking the small X sometimes found carved into the forehead of such priests. For similar, see C. C. Vermeule, Greek and Roman Sculpture in America, Los Angeles, 1981, p. 303, no. 259; for discussion of the portraiture of these priests, see S. Wood, 'Isis, Eggheads, and Roman Portraiture' JARCE, vol. 24, 1987, pp. 123-141.

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Bid now on these items

An Anatolian marble idol
A Mesopotamian clay cuneiform foundation cone with dedication inscription of King Lipit-Ishtar of Isin
A small Mesopotamian clay cuneiform foundation cone inscribed for King Sin-Kashid of Uruk
A Neo-Assyrian or Neo-Hittite bronze helmet with pelta-shaped cheek-pieces
A Babylonian agate "eye-stone" bead, inscribed for Nebuchadnezzar II
A large Etruscan Impasto Ware pottery olla
A Roman marble torso of a youth wearing a tunic
A Roman marble head of a satyr
An Attic pottery tankard with geometric decoration
A Greek bronze horse
A Greek pottery alabastron in the form of a greaved leg
A Greek green glazed faience hedgehog aryballos
A Greek bronze hydria with siren handle-plate
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An Attic black-figure Little Master band-cup with grazing deer and panther
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